In the underbelly of the O2 arena, a dark hole of a room packed with international press and photographers, a teenager clutched his hands to his face in disbelief. Around his neck hung a bronze Olympic medal. Britain's gymnastics men had just made history – the first British gymnastics team to win an Olympic medal in a century – and Max Whitlock's life was about to change dramatically. Before he could pause to take in his achievement, the story hit the newsrooms and the Essex teenager went from being an unknown gymnast to a history maker and national heart throb.

"Yeah, it was pretty crazy," the now 20-year-old recalls. "I remember in just one day at the Olympics my Twitter followers went up by about 10,000. It was an amazing experience." Whitlock's boyband good looks instantly won him attention from a legion of fans and he fidgets awkwardly in his seat as he attempts to explain what happened next.

"It was a bit weird actually. Some of the comments I got on Twitter were really funny – like people asking me to marry them and things like that." He stops, slightly embarrassed, and laughs. How many marriage proposals did he get? "I actually don't know ... I still get some now. It's really funny. It's really weird. I mean, what do you reply to that? 'I've got a long-term girlfriend?'" Whitlock does indeed have a long-term girlfriend, Leah, a gymnastics coach at his gym in Essex, and the sister-in-law of his own coach. Luckily Leah is pretty understanding of all this female adulation.

Whitlock's stock was still to grow, as days later he won a second bronze medal – on the pommel horse – redeeming himself after a poor performance in qualifying to step on to the podium alongside his team-mate and silver medal winner Louis Smith. Whitlock had always hoped he would win an Olympic medal but, never having competed at a major global championships, he thought London 2012 might have come too soon.

"I still can't believe it now," he says, grinning. "Even just saying it like that, it sounds weird to me. It was a massive shock. To get a medal as a team, the first time in 100 years, was so unexpected ... and then I scraped the [pommels] final. I made a slight mistake in qualification and managed to qualify in eighth. Literally I just knew I had to go all out in the final and try my hardest to get the best score and it's the best I've actually ever scored in a major competition, so I was really, really happy with it."

Whitlock took three weeks off to celebrate and live a life beyond his wildest dreams: a free luxury holiday on the Caribbean island of St Vincent, test-driving cars for Top Gear, partying with celebrities and a gift of his own personal pommel horse. When the holiday was over, Whitlock came back down to post-Olympic reality with an almighty bump.

"Three weeks off doesn't sound like a lot but in our sport that's a long time away from training," he says, wincing at the memory of trying to recover fitness. "I would normally have only two weeks off in a year." Getting back into the gym and working on new routines, adding in more demanding elements, was challenging.

"It was a massive high after the Olympics and, coming out of it, it was hard to try and motivate myself. In training I just felt knackered. Like, really knackered. I had to try so hard to motivate myself back up to it." A training programme of 36 hours over six days a week ensued – Whitlock's gymnastics is a full-time job for him, with the sport's funding allocation from UK Sport having risen by a whopping 34% after gymnastics won four Olympic medals last summer.

Whitlock, though, is not content to rest on his laurels. In March he won both the British and the English all-around titles – a huge advance on the fifth place the year before. Now Whitlock heads the British team travelling to Moscow to compete at the European Championships this weekend.

In preparation for taking on the Russians Whitlock has been working on adding new difficulty into his routines. "There's one move [on the pommels] called Busnari. The guy that made it up came fourth at the Olympics [Alberto Busnari] and he did it in his Olympic routine. It's been upgraded to a 'G' [difficulty], which is the highest category there is." There are only two 'G' moves in existence on the pommels, and Whitlock is keen to follow Smith's example in striving for difficulty – and originality – in his routines. On the floor he has also added an air flair. "It's like a breakdance move," he says, trying to describe the mind-boggling process of whirling his legs in the air while shifting his weight from one hand to another.

Whitlock is already being talked about as one to watch for Rio 2016 but for now his focus remains firmly on performing in Moscow. "I just want to go there and do six clean routines. If I can do that, I'll be happy, whatever the result."